Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki

Utley Visits Concussion Specialist, Rollins Activated

Chase Utley is in Philadelphia, where concussion specialist Rob Franks will examine him today at Rothman Institute.

Utley was hit in the helmet with a pitch in the sixth inning in last night’s 3-2 victory over Atlanta. He remained in the game, but left in the bottom of the eighth inning after complaining of a headache.

“We think it’s very, very mild, but we’re going to be cautious with him, obviously,” Ruben Amaro Jr. said last night. “You don’t want to mess with the head.”

Because the Phillies will be without Utley, the Phillies activated Jimmy Rollins from the DL. He had been sidelined because of a strained right groin. The Phillies probably would not have activated Rollins until next week, but activated him in case of an emergency.

“Before you all get ahead of yourselves, I’m not playing tonight,” Rollins said through his Twitter account (@JimmyRollins11).

Should be an interesting lineup with Utley and Rollins out of the lineup, huh?

Sinker, huh? Tell Ruben:
“We think this will be very mild,” Amaro said. “But we’re being cautious, obviously. You don’t want to mess with the head. Like I told Chase, ‘We’re not going to mess with the heart, and we’re not going to mess with the head.’ He got a 90-mile-an-hour fastball off the melon, so we’re going to be cautious about it.”
(from Jayson Stark on ESPN.com)

It was to close of a game for retaliation to happen last night. The game was still tied and after using all of the relievers this weekend you didn’t want to get anyone thrown out, just in case you play another extra inning game. Don’t worry their time will come. We play them the last week of the season. By then everything will be rapped up and you can have a scrub throw at and hit one of their players.

I completely agree with Mike and mah. As I mentioned before, last year Tim Hudson plunked Polanco early in the season in the elbow. Polanco was never the same after that. Now Utley in the head. O’Flaherty’s blatantly bad pitch was either intentional or just plain reckless. Inexcusable no matter which way you look at it. Phillies can’t keep allowing opposing teams pitchers to get away with this… otherwise, they will continue to do it. Remember Shane in San Francisco?? They must retaliate the last game of the regular season in a (hopefully) meaningless series — have a September call-up like Mike Zagurski take out Brian McCann. Enough already!

Football players and hockey players wear helmets too. They also suffer from concussions. Some would say that before players wore protective equipment, head injuries were less frequent. There’s something about wearing a helmet that makes players feel safer – even though it ain’t necessarily so.

There’s actually a *safer* helmet. I think it’s the S100. But according to some of the players, it’s debatable about how much safer it really is. The helmet most players use protect up to 70mph hits. The S100 protects up to 100mph. But it’s a lot bulkier, and heavier. Which is why most players won’t wear them.

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